Marsyas
by Icewind136
Summary: Marsyas, a Satyr, challenges Apollo to a musical contest. Guess who wins? Hubris leads to Nemesis. Mildly slashy. Rating for violence.
1. Chapter 1

Very first story shown to anyone but my family. All comments welcome. You don't have to be nice. :)

Notes: This is the myth of Marsyas and Apollo. It is not very well know, I came across it in a book (Dorian Gray ftw) and felt like writing it. Marsyas is a Satyr who challenges Apollo to a musical contest. Guess who wins? It's another ancient Greek hubris - nemesis.

I have one other story. It makes even less sense. It's for Watchmen. If people like this I'll make that presentable.

Oh yeah:

**Warnings**: Slash, sort of. Everyone wants Apollo. Also, insanity. And torture. No death.

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Flute to my lips, I play and it is perfect. Steady breath, fingers moving quickly and flawlessly, each minute shift brings a new tone. I play my best song, the longest and most difficult. The notes flow, the tempo is slow, and I do not make mistakes.

I am the best, and I do not make mistakes.

I play, and he watches me. My fingers and my breath and my flute hold all my attention, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye. He is sitting there, his chin in one hand, elbow to his knee, simply watching me. He does not move or blink, and I wonder if inside he is falling apart.

Not even a god can match me. I am Marsyas and I am the best.

I play with pride and I am so meticulous.

My audience lends itself to playing well. The nine young women are beautiful and so silent; it was easy to forget that they were there, if you were looking at them, but if you tried to look away they whispered at the back of your mind until their voices filled your head, and if your brain sometimes burst and ran down your fingers you just played with all the more fervor and feeling.

But feeling leads to sloppiness, to mistakes. I wouldn't dare be here if I gave up to my emotions.

He's still watching me.

I forget about him.

No, I don't. I can't. I hope that my fingers move just as fast, my breath just as steady, because I am watching him. He is a god.

A god.

He looks like…

…

…

He looks like birds, my mind is falling apart; his shoulders, his face is made of the curves of dove's breasts, he's still as a statue but he looks so ephemeral, he's going to fly away.

He is a deer, I am used to satyr's features and he is nothing like that, he is strong and beautiful and delicate without being fragile, he could be leaping just free of a hunter's arrow, wild.

His eyes must have snakes in them, to move like that, even when they are still. Even when they are watching, watching me. Goats who look into snake's eyes are beguiled, transfixed until the coils ripple closed, until there's no breath left.

I notice that I have been playing when I come to the end of the song.

The Muses—I am not sure whether to call them one or many, they all look so different, distinct, and yet they seem to be of one mind and body—are looking at me. I can't read their faces.

Now Apollo plays.

His hand is around his lyre, fingers curled around oiled wood. He draws it into his lap, fingers moving to the strings.

The sound. Beautiful music, I discover, does not make you think of home. This music was an alien world that felt like awe and ecstasy.

Too slow to know where you are; I can't make out the clouds but I think they're upside down tonight, I can't tell you what happens the trees are all wrong I don't know where I am scared. I'm terrified, shivers like moths down my face and arms, the music, notes running like wine down my neck, like honey over my nose and mouth and I can't breath but I can still see the Muses, sitting in a half-circle, but they are no help because they don't look part of reality anyway. But they are real, and I'm still here and so is he.

I think I meant to say 'so are they' but Apollo is moving, he lifts his face away from the harp and opens his mouth. He starts to sing.

"Not fair," I gasp, and then I don't know where I am anymore. Dimly I think I'm no longer in the hollow with the Muses, but Apollo is there, I am where he is. I can see everything, the whole universe, and for one second, one note I am somewhere where the edge of the world is white feathers and then his voice drops to a place of black water and still rivers that carry time backwards. Another second and I can't remember who I am, and all the world closes in on me that is nothing and devours me slowly. I am so far beyond terrified now that I'll never be the same again, he's erasing my mind, I almost forget about Apollo for his music. I can't do this much longer, tearing me apart drifting on this sea of tone and pitch and deep notes and high notes tearing my skin I'm a ghost I'm nothing, just a wisp on the wind and his breath is going to blow me away.

There is no winding down, there are fighting things and teeth to drag me back to reality, and the clouds are doing nauseating things to flip right-side up again, drifting through themselves and back between my mind and the world.

His voice stops and there is a terrifying moment when I am somewhere else without that guide, when I am where he is except that he is no longer there, and I am alone and myself.

Pain. I never realized it but this world is pain beyond anything else. Pain and he speaks and his voice is pleasure and I need to hear it again, he stops and the world hurts, I never knew how much pain I have always been in, without the sun-god's voice.

I never question how he can do this to me. He is a god.

I never question that he is the winner. Maybe if he had never sung to me I could still speak, but as it is I cannot remember that this was a contest. Even if I had known it never would have mattered. There are things more important that life and death, and the voice of the god of the lyre is one of them.

He strung me up by my wrists and produced a knife.

People came to watch, I think. I could vaguely see their faces, in the beginning, but now I just see his. I think I may be screaming, I may be begging, I know I'm repeating one word, please please please, maybe it's please, Apollo, please, please and I know they think I'm begging him to stop, or to just kill me now, they think I'm begging for mercy, for him to stop.

I'm not. I'm begging him, pleading not for my life but my soul.

I just want him to sing again.

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(In the myth, Apollo finally realizes he's being cruel and simply kills Marsyas. I have more chapters, although they may not be as faithful to the myth. I will work on those this weekend.)

(I would like reveiws, just say whatever you want to.)


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: Apollo probably isn't any nicer or kinder than any of the other gods, but hey, he's the protagonist and needs sympathy. Also, this was how it happened in some of the versions I read, but his motives are imagined.

**Warnings**: Very bloody. Torture. No romance at all, just angst and pain. This chapter in particular has an unhappy ending, but the story overall might be happier.

I thought about this. I imagined it, again and again. It was the only thing I would want from a mortal, I thought. I was young, silly, and all the other gods were talking about it.

I sharpened my knife for this.

I just needed an excuse. You can't just go up to any stranger…not even if I had the physical strength. Not even if it was someone no one cared about.

Then he came, bold and defiant, and my body hummed with excitement. My chance.

He would lose.

He lost.

I had with me rope, and my knife.

I gathered his mostly limp body in my arms. He was heavy—mortals are denser, with their oily skin and bulky kind of muscle. He wasn't human, not with delicate goat's hooves ending furred legs, but he was mortal. He had tanned skin, but I almost imagined it was dappled like the forest he lived in. He smelled like it, like pines and dead leaves and hidden streams. He wasn't unattractive.

I carried him to a strong tree with a branch as high as I stand.

The rope went around his wrists, over and under knobs of defined bones. His hands were limp, he did not resist.

He stirred when the other end of the rope sailed over the branch, when he was tugged to his feet by my pulling on the cord. I tied it to another branch. The rope was taut.

He was panting, his head hanging down, lost in some inner torment.

I wondered if I should make him look at me, but I was too nervous.

I drew my knife, contemplating the harsh silver gleam.

They said it was so sweet. Mortal screams. Mortal pain.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn't sweating, I don't sweat, but I was shivering a bit. In anticipation, I told myself.

The muses were watching, and others were gathering. I couldn't bring myself to focus on faces or think on where they had come from.

I gripped my knife and slashed down, a long, shallow cut across his chest. Blood seeped out, beading and mixing with sweat.

He moaned. Pain. Yes, yes, that was a nice sound.

Nothing like what would come. I held the wicked blade parallel to goat's skin and sliced, like shaving meat. Taking strips of skin. Moving slow.

He screamed. He screamed, again and again, and the crowd went quietly wild.

Gods don't sweat, but I found myself blinking moisture out of my eyes. My stomach wrenched and heaved.

His screams and moaned started to mix with oaths and pleas. To me, begging me. Please, please, he said.

I thought some of the blood covering my hands might have been mine. Something hurt that I could not identify.

I drew another long stroke across his chest, trying to find something sweet, something worth it in his scream of agony.

There was nothing, just nausea and pity.

I can't stop. I have an audience. They can't know I'm weak like this.

He's struggling, trying to lift his head. I reach out a hand and help him, my hand on his chin. He shudders and looks me in the eyes and I gag at what I see there.

Then I plant my feet, give a fierce glare to the onlookers, and a look of sorrow to him.

I'm sorry.

I make one last cut with confidence, this time across the neck, and the agony slowly leaves his eyes.

I cut him down. His body collapses into my arms. My shoulders and warm and wet. I prop him against the tree and step back.

I'm covered in his blood.

I fly home.

…

(I have more uncompleted chapters.)


	3. Chapter 3

I still haven't quite got the hang of this.

Notes: Happy chapter! Introduction of Eros. Fluff. I know that's strange. You don't have to read it.

Warnings: Out of character gods, maybe? Slash? A total loss of integrity and faithfulness to the actual myth?

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…

The trees were gossiping. The forest was talking, the flowers were preening like young girls, and the animals were enamored. There was a god among them!

They wasted no time in telling him that, actually, there were two gods in this particular forest, as of this time. He frowned, called out, and frowned again when I didn't answer, but his face was not sculpted for such things and he quickly made a game of trying to find me.

I made no move to hide, so he did find me. His face broke into a huge smile while I glared.

"Sunny!" he cried out, sitting down beside me. He propped his chin up with one hand and looked at me. "Why didn't you tell me it was just you? The flowers didn't know your name, why didn't you tell them? What are you doing here, anyway?" I didn't answer and eventually he stopped chattering and really looked at me. He smiled even bigger when he did, mischievously. Being two young gods, both very aware of our skill, strength, speed, and very attractive bodies, we were something of rivals and I had taunted him before about everything from his choice of weapons to his hair, even though mine was just as curly. Both had ended as badly as I deserved, but Eros isn't so much vengeful as playful and wicked. I would be a target for love's bad luck for eternity, and it was his good luck to find me in such a state.

"Ahhh…" he hummed, looking me over. "You don't look so great, Sunny. What's the matterrr, hmm? Have you fallen in love," he taunted, "without me?" He scrutinized me. "Ah. No, maybe not love. Some lust, though. You might ask my mother about that. Lust! It's only half the thing. Whoever died for lust alone? Pride, maybe, or duty, but not something so simple and crude. But even gods have wasted away for, ah…guilt." I looked up at his words, and the smile shattered off his face. "Sunny!" He leaned forward, brushing a tear off my cheek. I didn't bat him away like I usually would have.

"Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?" He sat back. "You know, Sunny, we've fought before, but I hate to see you like this. I hate to see anyone like this, unless it was I that made them feel so. Tell you what: I'm bored. I'll help you make it better. Where is he?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you sure none of this is your doing? How did you know he was a boy?"

He chuckled. "Sunny, if it had been me, and only if it had been me, would you have been crying over a girl. Probably. I am the opportunistic sort…Oh, and there would have been more desire, less guilt. What did you do?"

My head hung down again. "I killed him," I mumbled. "Slowly. Painfully. In front of an audience. After I had bewitched him. He would have done anything for me. I killed him," I repeated. "Without provocation. He challenged me to a contest of instruments. He played flutes. He lost. The Muses judged. I skinned him. He screamed."

"Oh. Oh. Well, was it fun?"

I whip my head up, my eyes to meet his. "No!"

I sighed, uncurled my fists. "No…it was not fun. I thought it would be, everyone else says it is…I had to try it, everyone else had. I didn't like it, but everyone was watching. He was in pain, I slit his throat."

"Ah, well, you know, that's okay, Sunny. I don't much care for screaming and blood myself. Personally I prefer something a bit more subtle in the way of mortal suffering. You'll find something you like."

"I don't care about that right now…"

"Ah yes right. Your pretty mortal boy. Well he's dead now but I bet there's still time, I bet he hasn't crossed the river. The boatman can only ferry so many at a time, you know, and there's been war going on. Mortals are always warring, aren't they? They don't even need us to start anything…"

I got to my feet when he did. "You think Hades would let me have him back?"

"If you asked nicely. You know what, I'll even come with you. I think he likes me."

"Eros, everyone likes you. And hates you."

"Ah? And which are you?" he purred, batting his eye lashes.

"Stop that."

"Aha! I was right. You do have a crush on your mortal. You barely even looked at me, and everyone knows how handsome I am."

"I would say you're…pretty. Like a girl."

He hit me, as expected, and I hit him back. I even managed to smile a bit.

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((Don't worry, next chapter should be darker. And still has nothing to do with the original myth, but that's why it's fanfiction.))


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